1. [n]  a light springing movement upwards or forwards
2. [n]  the quality of a substance that is able to rebound
3. [n]  rebounding from an impact (or series of impacts)
4. [v]  hit something so that it bounces, as of a ball
5. [v]  eject from the premises; "The ex-boxer's job is to bounce people who want to enter this private club"
6. [v]  spring back; spring away from an impact; "The rubber ball bounced"; "These particles do not resile but they unite after they collide"
7. [v]  move up and down repeatedly
8. [v]  leap suddenly; "He bounced to his feet"
9. [v]  refuse to accept and send back; "bounce a check"
10. [v]  come back after being refused; "the check bounced"

1. \Bounce\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Bounced}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Bouncing}.] [OE. bunsen; cf. D. bonzen to strike, bounce,
   bons blow, LG. bunsen to knock; all prob. of imitative
   origin.]
   1. To strike or thump, so as to rebound, or to make a sudden
      noise; a knock loudly.
            Another bounces as hard as he can knock. --Swift.
            Against his bosom bounced his heaving heart.
                                                  --Dryden.
   2. To leap or spring suddenly or unceremoniously; to bound;
      as, she bounced into the room.
            Out bounced the mastiff.              --Swift.
            Bounced off his arm+chair.            --Thackeray.
   3. To boast; to talk big; to bluster. [Obs.]
   

2. \Bounce\, v. t.
   1. To drive against anything suddenly and violently; to bump;
      to thump. --Swift.
   2. To cause to bound or rebound; sometimes, to toss.
   3. To eject violently, as from a room; to discharge
      unceremoniously, as from employment. [Collog. U. S.]
   4. To bully; to scold. [Collog.] --J. Fletcher.
   

3. \Bounce\, n.
   1. A sudden leap or bound; a rebound.
   2. A heavy, sudden, and often noisy, blow or thump.
            The bounce burst open the door.       --Dryden.
   3. An explosion, or the noise of one. [Obs.]
   4. Bluster; brag; untruthful boasting; audacious
      exaggeration; an impudent lie; a bouncer. --Johnson. De
      Quincey.?
   5. (Zo["o]l.) A dogfish of Europe ({Scyllium catulus}).
   

4. \Bounce\, adv.
   With a sudden leap; suddenly.
         This impudent puppy comes bounce in upon me.
                                                  --Bickerstaff.
   

1. (Perhaps by analogy to a bouncing check) An electronic mail message that is undeliverable and returns an error notification (a "bounce message") to the sender is said to "bounce".

2. To play volleyball. The now-demolished D. C. Power Lab building used by the Stanford AI Lab in the 1970s had a volleyball court on the front lawn. From 5 PM to 7 PM was the scheduled maintenance time for the computer, so every afternoon at 5 would come over the intercom the cry: "Now hear this: bounce, bounce!", followed by Brian McCune loudly bouncing a volleyball on the floor outside the offices of known volleyballers.

3. To engage in sexual intercourse; probably from the expression "bouncing the mattress", but influenced by Roo's psychosexually loaded "Try bouncing me, Tigger!" from the "Winnie-the-Pooh" books.

Compare boink.

4. To casually reboot a system in order to clear up a transient problem. Reported primarily among VMS users.

5. (VM/CMS programmers) Automatic warm-start of a computer after an error. "I logged on this morning and found it had bounced 7 times during the night"

6. (IBM) To power cycle a peripheral in order to reset it.

[Jargon File]